You'll Always Remember Me (2 page)

There wasn't another school in the State that would have taken me, public or private, after looking at my record. But when old man Clark had dough-ray-me clutched in his right fist he was blind to records like that. Well, that's the kind of a bunch we were.

Well, as I say, I was watching this glutton stuff eggs down his gullet, which he thought was a smart thing to do even though he got a bellyache afterward, when the guy on my right said:

“I see Tommy Smith is going to hang.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that's rotten, ain't it?”

“Rotten?” he replied. “It's wonderful. It's what that rat has coming to him.”

“Listen,” said I, “one more crack like that and I'll smack your stinking little face in.”

“You and how many others?” he said.

“Just me,” I said, “and if you want to come outside I'll do it right now.”

The kid who was table captain yelled: “Hey, you two pipe down. What's the argument anyway?”

“They're going to hang Tommy Smith,” I said, “and I think it's a dirty rotten shame. He's as innocent as a babe in the woods.”

“Ha-ha,” said the table captain, “you're just bothered about Marie Smith.”

“Skirt crazy! Skirt crazy!” mumbled the guy stuffing down the eggs.

I threw my water in his face, then I got up, facing the table captain, and the guy on my right. “Listen,” I said, “Tommy Smith is innocent. I was there an hour before the murder happened, wasn't I? What do you loud-mouthed half-wits think you know about it? All you morons know is what you read in the papers. Tommy didn't do it. I should know, shouldn't I? I was right there in the house before it happened. I've been around there plenty since. I've talked to the detectives.”

I sat down, plenty mad. I sat down because I had seen a faculty officer coming into the dining room. We all kept still until he walked on through. Then the table captain sneered and said:

“Tommy Smith is a dirty stinker. He's the one that killed his father all right. He stuck a knife right through his back!”

“A lie! A lie!” I screamed.

“How do you know it's a lie?”

“Well, I—I know, that's all,” I said.

“Yeah, you know! Listen to him! You know! That's hot. I think I'll laugh!”

“Damn it,” I said. “I
do
know!”

“How? How? Tell us that!”

“Well, maybe I did it. What do you think about that?”

“You!” shouted the table captain. “A little fourteen-year-old wart like you killing anybody! Ha!”

“Aw, go to hell,” I said, “that's what you can do. Go straight to hell!”

“A little wart like you killing anybody,” the table captain kept saying, and he was holding his sides and laughing.

ALL THAT Monday I felt pretty bad thinking about Tommy, what a really swell guy he had been, always laughing, always having a pat on the back for you. I knew he must be in a cell up in San Quentin now, waiting, counting the hours, maybe hearing them build his scaffold.

I imagine a guy doesn't feel so hot waiting for a thing like that, pacing in a cell, smoking up cigarettes, wondering what it's like when you're dead. I've read some about it. I read about Two Gun Crowley, I think it was, who went to the chair with his head thrown back and his chest out like he was proud of it. But there must have been something underneath, and Crowley, at least, knew that
he
had it coming to him. The real thing must be different than what you read in the papers. It must be pretty awful.

But in spite of all this I had sense enough to stay away from Marie all day. I could easily have gone to her house, which was across the street from the campus, but I knew that she and her sister, Ruth, and that Duff Ryan, the young detective who had made the arrest—because, as he said, he thought it was his duty—had counted on the commutation of sentence. They figured they'd have plenty of time to clear up some angles of the case which had been plenty shaky even in court. No, sir. Sweet Marie would be in no mood for my consolation and besides I was sick of saying the same things over and over and watching her burst into tears every time I mentioned Tommy's name.

I sat in the study hall Monday evening thinking about the whole thing. Outside the window I could see the stars crystal clear; and though it was warm in the classroom I could feel the cold of the air in the smoky blue of the night, so that I shivered. When they marched us into the dormitory at eight-thirty Simmons, the mess captain, started razzing me about Tommy being innocent again, and I said:

“Listen, putrid, you wanta get hurt?”

“No,” he said, then he added: “Sore head.”

“You'll have one sore face,” I said, “if you don't shut that big yap of yours.”

There was no more said and when I went to bed and the lights went off I lay there squirming while that fat-cheeked Pushton staggered through taps with his bugle. I was glad that Myers had bugle duty tomorrow and I wouldn't have to listen to Pushton.

But long after taps I still couldn't sleep for thinking of Tommy. What a damn thing that was—robbing me of my sleep! But I tell you, I did some real fretting, and honestly, if it hadn't been for the fact that God and I parted company so long ago, I might have even been sap enough to pray for him. But I didn't. I finally went to sleep. It must have been ten o'clock.

I didn't show around Marie's Tuesday afternoon either, figuring it was best to keep away. But after chow, that is, supper, an orderly came beating it out to the study hall for me and told me I was wanted on the telephone. I chased up to the main building and got right on the wire. It was Duff Ryan, that young detective I told you about.

“You've left me with quite a load, young man,” he said.

“Explain,” I said. “I've no time for nonsense.” I guess I must have been nervous to say a thing like that to the law, but there was something about Duff Ryan's cool gray eyes that upset me and I imagined I could see those eyes right through the telephone.

“I mean about Ruth,” he said softly, “she feels pretty badly. Now I can take care of her all right, but little Marie is crying her eyes out and I can't do anything with her.”

“So what?” I said.

“She's your girl, isn't she, Martin?” he asked.

“Listen,” I said, “in this school guys get called by their last name. Martin sounds sissy. My name is Thorpe.”

“I'm sorry I bothered you, Martin,” Duff said in that same soft voice. “If you don't want to cooperate—”

“Oh, I'll cooperate,” I said. “I'll get right over. That is, provided I can get permission.”

“I've already arranged that,” Duff told me. “You just come on across the street and don't bother mentioning anything about it to anyone.”

“O.K.,” I said, and hung up. I sat there for a minute. This sounded fishy to me. Of course, Duff
might
be on the level, but I doubted it. You can never tell what a guy working for the law is going to do.

I trotted out to the campus and on across to the Smith house. Their mother had died a long while ago, so with the father murdered, and Tommy in the death house, there were only the two girls left.

Duff answered the door himself. I looked up at the big bruiser and then I sucked in my breath. I wouldn't have known him! His face was almost gray. Under his eyes were the biggest black rings I had ever seen. I don't mean the kind you get fighting. I mean the other kind, the serious kind you get from worry. He had short clipped hair that was sort of reddish, and shoulders that squared off his figure, tapering it down to a nice V.

Of course, he was plenty old, around twenty-six, but at this his being a detective surprised you because ordinarily he looked so much like a college kid. He always spoke in a modulated voice and never got excited over anything. And he had a way of looking at you that I hated. A quiet sort of way that asked and answered all of its own questions.

Personally, as a detective, I thought he was a big flop. The kind of detectives that I prefer seeing are those giant fighters that blaze their way through a gangster barricade. Duff Ryan was none of this. I suppose he was tough but he never showed it. Worst of all, I'd never even seen his gun!

“Glad you came over, Martin,” he said.

“The name is Thorpe,” I said.

He didn't answer, just stepped aside so I could come in. I didn't see Ruth, but I spotted Marie right away. She was sitting on the divan with her legs pulled up under her, and her face hidden. She had a handkerchief pressed in her hand. She was a slim kid, but well developed for fifteen, so well developed in fact that for a while I had been razzed about this at school.

Like Tommy, she had blond hair, only hers was fluffy and came part way to her shoulders. She turned now and her face was all red from crying, but I still thought she was pretty. I'm a sucker that way. I've been a sucker for women ever since I was nine.

She had wide spaced green eyes, and soft, rosy skin, and a generous mouth. Her only trouble, if any, was that she was a prude. Wouldn't speak to anybody on the Clark campus except me. Maybe you think I didn't like that! I'd met her at Sunday school or rather coming out, since I had been hiding around waiting for it to let out, and I walked home with her four Sundays straight before she would speak to me. That is, I walked along beside her holding a one-way conversation. Finally I skipped a Sunday, then the next one she asked me where I had been, and that started the ball rolling.

“Thorpe,” she said—that was another thing,
she
always called me by my last name because that was the one I had given her to start with—“Thorpe, I'm so glad you're here. Come over here and sit down beside me.”

I went over and sat down and she straightened up, like she was ashamed that she had been crying, and put on a pretty good imitation of a smile. “How's everything been?” she said.

“Oh, pretty good,” I said. “The freshmen are bellyaching about Latin this week, and just like algebra, I'm already so far ahead of them it's a crying shame.”

“You're so smart, Thorpe,” she told me.

“Too bad about Tommy,” I said. “There's always the chance for a reprieve though.”

“No,” she said, and her eyes began to get dim again, “no, there isn't. This—this decision that went through Sunday night—that's the—Unless, of course, something comes up that we—the lawyer can—” and she began crying.

I put my arm round her, which was a thing she hadn't let me do much, and I said, “Come on, kid. Straighten up. Tommy wouldn't want you to cry.”

About five minutes later she did straighten up. Duff Ryan was sitting over in the corner looking out the window but it was just like we were alone.

“I'll play the piano,” she said.

“Do you know anything hot yet?”

“Hot?” she said.

“Something popular, Marie,” I explained. Blood was coming up into my face.

“Why, no,” she replied. “I thought I would—”

“Play hymns!” I half screamed. “No! I don't want to hear any of those damned hymns!”

“Why, Thorpe!”

“I can't help it,” I said. “I've told you about that enough times. Those kinds of songs just drone along in the same pitch and never get anywhere. If you can't play something decent stay away from the piano.”

My fists were tight now and my fingers were going in and out. She knew better than to bring up that subject. It was the only thing we had ever argued about. Playing hymns. I wanted to go nuts every time I heard
“Lead Kindly Light”
or one of those other goofy things. I'd get so mad I couldn't see straight. Just an obsession with me, I guess.

“All right,” she said, “but I wish you wouldn't swear in this house.”

I said, “All right, I won't swear in this house.”

“Or anywhere else,” she said.

I was feeling good now. “O.K., honey, if you say so.”

She seemed pleased and at least the argument had gotten her to quit thinking about Tommy for a minute. But it was then that her sister came downstairs.

Ruth was built on a smaller scale than Marie so that even though she was nineteen she wasn't any taller. She had darker hair too, and an oval face, very white now, making her brown eyes seem brighter. Brighter though more hollow. I will say she was beautiful.

She wore only a rich blue lounging robe, which was figure-fitting though it came down past her heels and was clasped in a high collar around her pale throat.

“I think it's time for you to come to bed, Marie,” she said. “Hello, Thorpe.”

“Hello,” I said.

Marie got up wordlessly and pressed my hand, and smiled again, that faint imitation, and went off. Ruth stood there in the doorway from the dining room and as though it was a signal—which I suspect it was—Duff Ryan got up.

“I guess it's time for us to go, Martin,” he said.

“You don't say,” I said.